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The Evening Echo logo
05.11.2017 09:02
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Citizens Assembly: 97% say climate change should be at centre of government policy

Update 4.30pm:The Citizens' Assembly has voted overwhelmingly in favour of Ireland taking measures to address climate change.

The results have been announced at Malahide in Dublin and showed 97% of delegates voting in favour of climate change being at the centre of government policy-making.

80% agreed they would pay higher taxes to reduce carbon emissions, and 96% supported the government taking immediate steps to support a transition to electric cars.

Some of the results announced by the Citizen's Assembly on Climate Change were:

  • 97% agreed climate change should be at the centre of policy-making in Ireland;

  • All of the delegates agreed the state should take a leadership role in taking measures to address climate change;

  • 80% of the delegates voted in favour of paying higher taxes to reduce carbon emissions;

  • 93% supported increasing the number of cycle and bus lanes and giving their use priority over cars;

  • 96% supported the Government's taking immediate steps to support a transition to electric cars;

Update 12.18pm: Oisin Coghan, Director of Friends of the Earth, has urged the Government to adopt proposals on tackling climate change that were discussed in today's meeting of the Citizens Assembly.

"The draft proposals for climate action from the Citizens Assembly would not get us from laggard to leader," he said.

"But they would allow us to aspire to being average. They are mostly about playing catch-up with our European neighbours.

"If adopted and implemented they would end nearly a decade of Government inaction."

Earlier:

The Citizens Assembly is to discuss climate change for a second day today.

Delegates are expected to hear about how Ireland is on course to miss their targets by a wide margin.

Members will take part in a secret ballot later to finalise their recommendations to submit to the Oireachtas.

Kevin O'Farrell, who has spent the weekend as an observer for Cyclist.ie, claimed that the transport sector is lagging behind when it comes to bringing about real change.

"the presentations were a bit disappointing, because they were just reiterating what the Government's doing or not doing, not emphasising investing in sustainable transport and continuing business as usual," he said.

"Increased investment in cycling infrastructure, the recommended level would be about 10% of the transport budget - it's not even close to that at the moment."